Many people feel they work better under pressure, but if you need to think creatively, a relaxed environment will work far better. That’s how Dr Heidi Edmundson approaches play, and importantly makes the distinction that although play can be childlike, it’s not childish.

Things to consider

• We need connection as human beings, and it can sometimes be achieved by something as simple as briefly removing a mask.
• By following a step-by-step process of curiosity, Heidi became more able to trust herself.
• Trust can help overcome skepticism.
• The outcomes of play are not always directly quantifiable, but no less valuable.

Links

• As we recover from the pandemic let’s not forget to encourage staff to take a break – a BMJ opinion piece by Heidi
• Playfilled
• Make Work Play

Hello, welcome to the show.

My name's Tzuki Stewart from Playfilled

And I'm Lucy Taylor from Make Work Play.

Together, we are Why Play Works.

The podcast that speaks to people, radically reshaping

the idea of work as play.

Today, I'm with Dr.

Heidi Edmondson, who has worked in the NHS for over 20 years, the last 10

of which as a consultant in emergency medicine at Wittington Health.

She's a passionate advocate for NHS staff wellness and its importance

with regards to the individual, the workforce and the patients they care for.

Now you might be forgiven for thinking that the emergency department of a

hospital doesn't exactly lend itself to creating a playful environment.

But Heidi is a real trailblazer in using play and creativity as a means

to facilitate wellness, build teams and help people find their voice.

For the past six years, she's run dedicated playful sessions in her hospital

in which staff are encouraged to play games or take part in short creative tasks

In this conversation, we hear how by engaging in these playful

activities together, Heidi has seen her colleagues able to express their

whole selves and connect to the humanity in themselves and others.

So let's kick off.

What does the word play mean to you?

I think that is quite an interesting question.

Um, and I have sort of, I think about this regularly and I think I'm just staged now.

I suppose I associate play by much with the concept of creativity and

creativity is very important to me.

So I think play is almost the practical application of creativity or a

practical way to access creativity.

Maybe there's a better way to say it.

Um, so I think, you know, this idea, you know, people who don't think

about creativity or a lot of people, I think that you just create creative to

people just to make up and our creator for me, just to wake up and they're

being creative, going about their lives, you know, coming up with ideas.

And actually, I think a lot of creative people would tell you that in order

to sort of access that creativity, you need to go through a process and

play with the way to access that.

I suppose another way is it's a kind of safe way to access or

to explore concepts and ideas.

So it's sort of like a, it's a safe way of doing that.

There's something about it being relaxed.

So I think if you're putting under pressure to do anything, a lot of,

lots of people think they work well under pressure, but actually if you're

really trying to access something new or different, I think you work better

under kind of relaxed atmosphere.

The other thing I would probably say is more particularly foot plate isn't

and I think this is quite important as it's not childish because I think it

might be child something like children, or it might be something childlike,

but I think it's not a childish thing.

And I think this is moving by.

People get anxious about the word play because they associate it with being

childish and actually maybe childlike in a positive way, but it it shouldn't have

those negative connotations with people sort of say, stop being so childish.

And what about you?

You've said that creativity is very important to you personally.

so if play is the way you access that, when did you last bill playful?

I could almost ask these questions to the, to the time was quite interesting.

So I probably in my, my private life, I sort of, one of the ways I access this

was, belong to two kinds of creative writing forums, uh, run by two very

inspirational women called Diane Samuels and Claire Steele, and they have both,

they both use a similar techniques, um, which is very much this idea of

encouraging creative writing food, playing with words, word games, you know, they

facilitate group sessions for your given, you know, you eat stone, offer the word

to play with, and then you swap phrases.

And they very much encouraged his kind of playful approach to words,

in in order to access creative, your creativity and writing.

So that that's sort of one aspect, I suppose.

Um, other ways I do it, um, I did run a workshop at work last week or two weeks

ago, um, which was again using this kind of playful techniques, playing games.

So I suppose that, that, that was, you know, I suppose specifically like that.

I think it's what you do, you just feel and you're your own, you know,

if you get together, you know, I've sort of said at the beginning, or

when we were talking earlier, you guys just went home for a week.

So I caught up with two older, two, most of my school friends.

I think the kinds of conversations you have are playful.

You, you joke, you you make good with this.

I kind of really lovely, lively Playfilled conversations you can have

with good friends that are important.

And I completely agree, and I think what's lovely as well as thinking about how you

can be doing something playfully that doesn't need to be a Playfilled activity.

You can be cuing to the post office, but there's a kind of mindset or

a way of moving through the world.

Isn't it?

You can be playful or not playful and dial it up and down depending on how you feel,

but you don't have to be doing a playful activity to be playful and in your spirit.

So we often think about play and work.

I think we've been conditioned to believe that they are opposites.

You know, you work hard, you play hard.

They that they're not meant to meet.

How do you think play and work relate to each other?

Well, I think they are important because I think probably the misconceptions

are that somehow or other, this idea, if you're at work, you have to be

serious, you work as a serious thing and to play is not a serious thing.

So and, and I think one of the, when I first started trying to introduce this

concept of playfulness, you like one of the ways that you don't one of the first

talks I did, I called it the serious business of fun, because I actually

think there's an element that that fun and, and playfulness are very important

and they're very important to access a lot of qualities that I think are

very important for whatever job you do.

Um, so in my context of I'm a doctor over at an emergency department.

I think the, you know, if you, if you do access that playful side

of yourself, it does put you in touch with your own humanity.

It puts you in this empathetic side, it puts you in touch with the bit

of you that you need to connect to.

And sometimes you you're on sometimes even people like you to, to, you

know, people want connection.

That that is what people want.

Everybody wants connection.

So patients want connections when you're working with people,

they w they want to connect.

Um, and I sort of think, within work, I think it's

something about these questions.

I sort of asked myself a lot now and I bring up in conversations.

What is the culture of a workplace?

What sort of culture do you want?

And I think something that keeps on coming up more and more is this

idea, you want a culture that is relational, not transactional.

And I think that is important in a lot of work places.

And I think it's also important in the NHS.

So I think this kind of playful and connection that the old Lincoln to

be able to connect them with other people and to forge relationships.

So I think that that, that is why it is important, and it's important in my

workplace, which those relationships are important, both with your

colleagues, but also with the kind of therapeutic relationship with patients.

Um, and I imagine that it's important to know all other

relationships or all other workplaces.

It's this idea of building relationships.

I think also the relationship with with play and work.

It's also, as I said before, creativity is, is associated and connected with this.

And it's actually, creativity is very important.

I would say problem solving.

And I think all workplaces we've gone through a lot to think in the last couple

of years with the pandemic, we've really had to stand up and think oh my goodness.

Our whole lives changed, our whole way we view things.

So actually there is something important, even continuing to move on

how we find new ways of doing things.

And actually players also again, associated with creativity and that

that is associated with problem solving.

So I think that's, that's such a relevance to any, any workplace, really.

Absolutely.

There's something very, very human

about play, or even very, maybe you'd say normalistic cause you see animals

playing as well.

I don't know, but there's something very, deeply human and how we do it.

We we've, we've put it in this box as belonging to children and for

childhood.

And then, you know, that box would be put on the shelf, but actually

if you can bring that box down and start to use it in work, it's

it accesses something in enough.

Th that doesn't get invited out.

We'll meet when we keep it up on that shelf.

I think maybe another way with worst case.

It does a thing that I sometimes say as people who sort of took, begun to

look at play, it's a bit like dessert.

You're only allowed to get it, you know, you're only allowed when

they're from the serious work of dinner has been taken care of.

And then if you were a very good person and there's the you've been

good and you've been well-behaved and there's a little bit of time left at

the end, you're allowed a dessert.

And I think, you know, sometimes say it's, it's more than that.

It should be, you know, it should be there all the time.

Oh, I love that.

I can't promise.

I'm not going to take that and run with it because we talk about how

this idea that you have to earn it.

You have to earn the right to be selfish and to be playful.

And, and that's not the case.

So we you've already mentioned some of this, but I'd love to hear

a bit more about what, what do you think we really misunderstand

about play in the context of work?

So you mentioned that at the moment, we really do kind of dismiss it

as being frivolous or childish.

So what are we missing out on in your view when we do sort

of diminish it in that way?

So, I think play is an important aspect of problem solving, because

it connects to creativity and that connects to this concept of

finding a new solution to a problem.

And I think sometimes people are scared to enter into any of this, this sort

of playfulness to look for solutions.

So, you end up having quite serious conversations, but all that really happens

quite often is you, you recycle the same solution over and over and over again.

So quite often, you're, you're not finding a new solution.

And I think being playful does lead you to find a new solution.

And there's something about if you think about when you were a child and

you played, that there's an elementary, you, you go into a zone where you

you're just, you're, you're making connections, you're linking things that

you wouldn't automatically have linked before, you're finding ways of doing

something, you know, you can give a group of children a set of boxes and you

can leave them to it, and then you'll come back and they'll have created a

whole different world with those boxes.

And it's that ability to take something that you've got and

re-see it in a different way, is something you do when you're playful.

And it's also what you need to do if you need to think your

way forward into a situation.

I think this is a huge thing for, for everybody in the workforce at the moment.

Cause we're all trying to come to terms with where we are in the

world and how to move forward after everything we've been through.

So I think that that's one way.

I think in stressful work places, and again, the NHS is a stressful

workplace, but then that many workplaces are stressful workplaces.

Th th there's a lot of conversations around how you

can get people to de-stress.

And one of the ones that comes up a lot is is is meditation.

And people will say, you know, go home and practice mindfulness.

And mindfulness, you know, obviously works and it works for a lot of people,

but, but it doesn't work for everybody.

It's not completely easily accessible.

But actually we know that if you engage in these kinds of just to put your

mate call any kind of slightly playful activities, or creative activities,

that they are the same as mindfulness.

And we all know this and are, you know it's why lots of people find solace and

baking or cooking because it's, you, you just are focused on the present.

And it's an, it's a very easy and accessible way to focus in on the

present that, that, that a lot of people will find easier to do than

actually practice mindfulness.

Um, and also because it's associated with other things.

If you start to laugh, because quite often you're that playful mood, then you start

laughing, in laughter is as they will have gantry you, one of the most healthy

things that you can do for yourself.

It is your heart, it is really, really a very healthy and it reduces cortisol,

it increases, like serotonin, bonding hormones, creases your pain threshold.

So it's a really healthy thing to do.

So and it's a very cheap and easy and accessible way to

get people to laugh and do it.

I think also in the context of learning, if so in you're in any kind of sort of

environment where you're trying to get people to learn or learn new things,

they have shown that a few laugh or fun's involved, or you're sort of much

more likely to change your behavior.

So I think that's very, very important.

And there was something fun theory, but she's, they tried to make things funds.

They, they talk about the very good example of this is in Sweden and one

of the underground stations, they wanted people to use the stairs, not

the escalator and people obviously, you could put up as many notices

as you wanted, people ignored them.

Um, but then they turned the stairs into a big grand piano that played

music as you walked up and done it, so it became a fun thing to do

and stare usage increased by 66%.

So if you are trying to do something to get people, to change their

behavior, they are much more likely to do it if you make it a fun thing

rather than a deadly serious thing.

Um, and I think all of these are things that people will spend

a lot of time thinking your workplace, how do I do these?

But then again, you people sort of dismiss fun.

Um, and again, another thing I was like to say, it's a victim of its

own success because nobody takes it seriously, cause he just go,

well, we're not going to use it.

We can't make it fun.

We have to take this as a serious thing.

And, and actually they they just keep on discounting it.

I've heard you say that as a, as a doctor.

You couldn't initially, you couldn't see where creativity had a place in

your working life, and you've mentioned your own creative writing pursuits.

So for you personally, it's always been very important, but before you

didn't see how it fitted into your work life and could inform your working

practice, can you tell me about what happened to change your mind on that?

Yeah.

So I suppose that, that they sort of, the first thing that happened was,

that the first way it sort of accessed, it was this concept of communication.

So, um, back in 2013 now, I was very lucky that I did a communication

course, that it was sort of a pilot and it was being arranged by St.

John's Hospice and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

So it's looking very much at dramatic methods in improving communication.

And it was based in the sort of principle, you know, if you're a great

actor, you are a great communicator, that's what all great actors do.

So I sort of, I did this course, cause it was a pilot was once a week

and Wednesday nights for six weeks.

So obviously actors and actresses did, they use a lot of games and they, they

do not get to where they are becoming an incident in being deadly serious.

You don't having PowerPoints, you know, if there's a lot of it,

you listen up, you, you D so is it that, that became very much.

At part of it.

I know on the very last session of this, they talked about a start-up

theater called forum theater, which I became, like, it just resonated

with the first time I heard about it.

And it's a style of theater which was created really in the fifties

by a man called Augustus Bullough, who was at the time in Brazil.

And it was really using theater to explore insoluble problems

and drive social change.

So it wasn't as that as a matter of entertainment.

And, you know, they, they, they used, he used it in Brazil, which

was sort of for political reasons.

They were under very right-wing Gentoo at the time, but it can

be taken in lots of context.

And the way it works is you created a small, uh, sort of pace,

which, you know, you can chew to a community and the unbearable, the

lead character, and this people will identify with them for many reasons.

And actually the lead character ends up in this set piece, doing badly,

you know, not getting what they want, being crushed by the system.

And then, in the theater piece, you, a member of the, the sort

of company gets the audience to really discuss what they're seeing.

So the member of the company is a facilitator and he gets people to discuss.

And it's keeps on asking the question, could that?

person have behaved differently to change things?

And then after the discussion, you replay the piece, but you invite the

audience up to be the lead character.

And they try to get people to, to, to change their behavior.

And it's more than role play, because everybody in the, in

the past has as prepared for it.

And they're prepared for it, again, go back to fund the games, there are

a lot of these acting techniques.

They believe in the character that they're playing on.

Why that characters believe it, behaving that way.

But it's very much that if you really work at it, sometimes you can just do

something and that person will change.

So it's a very playful way of exploring problems.

So, so really to begin with, this resonated with me and I

became very invested in this and I'm very interested in it.

And then I was lucky enough to.

Really do several workshops that, that we didin the sort of in the department,

the first with the Cardboard Citizens forum theater company, which is sort of

a Ciara homeless charity, but they're sort of a professional company who do it.

And then we did some others with the Central School of Speech and

Drama, and and we worked on that.

And then we just quite big projects and that.

But then when I got to the stage when I really began to think of

wellbeing and I wanted to bring it in and could I, how, like how could

I sort of really focus on that?

I had noted that, particularly even doing the warmup games and a lot of these, these

games that, that just sort of don't do in theater environments, which were maybe

alien to somebody from a very scientific medical background, but these games

are to just get people to relax and to energize them and connect with each other.

I suppose, one of the things that's to turn individuals into an ensemble cast.

And I'd really felt that actually, during all these workshops and we were doing

these people loved to play these games.

They, you just laughed and the back to being a child, again.

People really connected and they were one of the things that people love doing.

So when I was at a stage of, I wanted to introduce more something with

wellbeing into the workplace, but I didn't want to just talk about it.

I wanted to make it a real thing, I realized, basically, I was always

looking for places or ways to do it.

And I realized we had 10 minute teaching slots every day,

which we were very clinical.

We talked about a guideline, et cetera, but these pitching

slots, some of them were empty.

So I thought, well, I could take some of these over and do something but wellbeing.

And then I thought, actually, we could just be one of these games, or two

of these games in that 10 minutes, and then begin to see how it goes.

So, so that was really the start of bringing them into the workplace,

and trying to get people to just do them at the start of the day.

Will the connect people at the start of the shift, will they do that?

And really from that, that I suppose really it was about getting the games to

get people, to connect with themselves and each other in a very sort of way that

made them laugh and an energizing way.

Just to see if that, if that could be brought into, to us as part of the day to

day, or maybe not, it wasn't as much as every day, but it was part of the kind of

fabric or the pattern of the workplace.

That's exactly it isn't it it's often the challenge, um, to do exactly that,

to bring it into more of the day-to-day practice that you're talking about.

It's easier as a, as an organization to say, oh, we like this idea of more playful

ways of working or, you know, let's, let's spend a half day doing this together.

And it's so great and you see amazing things happen.

And then it's back to business as usual the next day, and

it sort of doesn't live on.

So how can you really weave it into, as you say, the fabric of the task, the day

to day, um, ways of working is it's not an easy feat, but it sounds like you've,

you've made some amazing progress on that.

And could you give some examples of some of the results that you've seen, kind

of working with this idea of playfulness with, you know, teams of doctors

and nurses and other medical staff?

What have you seen kind of come out of those, those playful practices with those

teams in terms of results and impact?

Well, I suppose if there's several things.

So I have always taken feedback from it, and then probably the, the time I

was able to get them was interesting bit of feedback was, we were doing

it for 10 minutes once a week.

And then back in 2018 it was pre pandemic.

So we got 110 members of staff were given a day.

And on that actually gives a piece of cohesive feedback.

And that was spread over February and March, and really what we did

at the end of that day, we we asked people to, there's a thing called

the Edinburgh Warwick wellness score.

So we just said, can you score yourselves?

Um, it's out of 10.

The full score has 14 positively worded sort of describers of wellbeing.

We use seven cause they were applicable to today and it seems like how

energized you feel, how connected you feel, how cheerful do you feel?

And we asked everybody to, um, score themselves.

And over 80% scored themselves eight or more out of 10.

So that, that was, that was quite impressive.

And it's something like, I think cheerfulness, you know, 33%, which is

a third, gave themselves 10 out of 10.

So sometimes I go, well, if I never achieved anything else in my life for

one day, I may, you know, one day, you know, but during that time that

people pretend that 10 and cheerful.

Um, somebody then said, well, did it affect sickness rates?

Again, I felt, I don't know, but when we looked at sickness rates that those

days were held in February and March, we looked at secondary threats and the April

and we compared them to the year before.

And the sentence rates were reduced by 33%.

Now, again, you can never say that that was due to those days.

There are so many variables, but I still think it was an

interesting thing to pick up.

Um, and I think it is worth looking at a bit more closely.

Um, so I think that was having very, if you like, quantitative data or

some measurable data, which is what people want when they asked you if you

want to know, they want you to say.

Everybody wants you to say, I can tell you it it's it's this quantitative data.

I think as time goes on know, sometimes I think, again, it goes back to this

idea, you know, is this relational or is it transactional because quantitative

data is a little bit transactional, or we do there's some, we get this back.

Relational wise, I remember after doing those days, and I'm not busy with my own

team of people that I know quite well, I then by whole sequence of events, ended up

doing it as part of a workshop at a, at a conference, which was, I think the Academy

of Medical Educators in Cardiff in 2018.

And I'd sort of agreed to do this as a workshop.

Uh, and I really, as the time grew close, I was very anxious about this.

Um, and they, I remember it was hailed and, um, it was in Cardiff.

So it was in their sort of big art in drama and music college.

So I went done to date and I remember being really

anxious before I had to do it.

And we went upstairs and I was actually in a drama studio.

So I remember thinking if there's more, it was like almost a

nightmare of imposter syndrome.

Because suddenly I was finding myself in a drama studio doing this

drama workshop, and the little voice in my head was going but you're a

doctor, what are you doing here?

And, um, the, the room beside the all, all the studios were named after

very, um, sort of famous, uh, Welsh performers and uh, and uh, the one

beside me was the Shirley Bassey.

So I remember thinking, right, I've still never thought I have to channel my

inner Shirley Bassey kind of diva now.

And, and everybody come into the room and, and these were people I did not know.

I had never met any of these people that all signed up for this workshop.

There's this 15 people.

One of my people I grew up with had come with me.

In fact, she was in the room, so to take photos and help me out a bit.

And it was, it was very stressful.

I could actually see some people were a bit like, what are you talking about?

But, but the end of it, they had all bonded.

And, and one of them said to me, It's very powerful.

I thought it was a load of nonsense, but it really works.

And I think since I've done workshops, I've seen that again and again

and again, and, um, there is just something wonderful about standing

in a room full of everybody laughing.

And you do see at the end of that time, people build boned, people will connect.

You, you will begin to see something happening between people when you do it.

The other example, I think at the time works the very strange example, and maybe

this is my own positive self-talk coming, but, um, I, I did it with our nursing

staff, um, one, one day I just, it was just a, this was just a short, one of

the short 10 minute sessions at work.

And at the end of it, one of the members of staff said to me, I really

think it's nice that you're trying to do this to help us, but I just

think it's a little bit of rubbish.

So tell us, obviously, this is not what you want to hear.

And then you think, okay.

And I said, okay, I didn't.

I said that, I said, that's fine.

You were like, think it's a load of rubbish.

You know, that, that people are like now.

Then he, we sat in that room.

And he talked to me for quite a long period of time and

he said, I'm really fed up.

You know, I'm disillusioned, I'm this, uh, I'm on a whole lot of reasons,

and I don't want to, I've decided I'm going to give up my job for a while.

I don't want to, but this is what I think needs to be done.

And he told me everything and then we talked about it.

And we talked for about 45 minutes.

And then I went back to my office and I remember thinking, oh well,

you can't win them all kind of ideas.

And I thought well, again, this goes back to this idea, this desire to measure.

And you want to measure, and you won't see, my measure is at

works and everybody's happier.

But you know, I'm not saying I'm making people happier.

And I know some of it goes back to this idea that you

can't make individuals happy.

And I'm actually really, I thought, well, actually, maybe, uh, as a sort

of measure, it only hasn't worked.

If I'm only measuring, I'm making people happy.

But then if I look at it another way and say, you know, th this is a

new member of staff, it is somebody who is theoretically junior to me.

But obviously I had created an environment where they felt comfortable

enough to say to me, what you're is a complete waste of time and stupid.

And actually that, you know, this comes into this concept of the workplace.

If you talk a lot about psychological safety.

Do you feel comfortable with speaking up?

Do you feel comfortable that you'd be listened to?

And I thought, well, actually, maybe this is a sign that it does

work because actually, you know, that that's what you really want.

You know, you, you, nobody can make everybody happy every moment of every

day, and actually, we don't want to make people happy all the time.

That's, that's not how you grow in life and move forward.

You know, nobody can go on, you know.

What you're looking for is, is creating an environment or a culture where people

feel, feel able to just be honest and open and people feel able to confront things.

So I thought actually I think, and it's an odd way, although that determined

similar to rubbish, I felt like after saying oh you know it's not as of a load

of rubbish as you think it is, because if it was that much a load of rubbish,

you wouldn't have been sitting there telling me it was a load of rubbish.

You'd have just gone out of the room.

So I think sometimes I think that was, in its odd way, one of the

biggest signs to me that it works.

I really love that because in our work, when I'm putting to work

with, with Playfilled, as you say, people want quantitative data.

They want to say, you know, what percentage increase I'm going to

see in this KPI, in that metric.

And you know what?

I absolutely get it.

And I want to be able to give that information and that data.

But so much of this.

In tangible and very difficult to quantify and package up.

And what we often find is play and engaging in playfulness between colleagues

and between just the humans, other people, it won't always lead to one outcome.

It will be different depending on the individual and the group.

And as you say, it can be that these had a great time in that moment, and it was

a moment of mindfulness, as you said.

It can be that they've connected with someone.

They can be that you've created that environment of psychological safety.

It can be that it just starts a conversation that, that

wouldn't have started otherwise.

You can't say do this and you'll get that outcome, which is, I think amazingly

powerful and magical, but can also be quite challenging to almost kind of

convince someone else because they want to know what's going to happen if I do this,

and it's a little bit, I'm not quite sure.

It's, it's, I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a good thing, but it might be a

seed that is planted or a conversation that has had that might've happened

before, but you can't dictate and channel it in one particular way.

And that's sometimes I think the answer, you know, sometimes if I even had to

say, okay, Well, what if nothing happens?

Okay but what if we do it and absolutely nothing happens?

Because the reality is, you know, you have to say, does every single other thing

that I've ever done in the workplace, does it always something happening?

You know, and I think, I think that is quite important in that I've had

to start vocalizing, um, or something else that I quite liked the I sort

of a, a slide that I use at the end of talks comes from a few years ago.

I stayed in Venice on it was, um, I said my hotel room, another side of

the grand canal, there was a sort of statue that was quite, uh, uh, a big

statue of, uh, what looked like a man holding up a ruler up to the sky.

And I sort of, I saw it every day and it was very striking.

And you think oh, what is that?

So I Googled it, um, on, uh, I found out it's called the

Man Who Measures the Clouds.

and actually what the, the sort of artist said, was that was a kind of his idea

of how do you measure the unmeasurable.

And her has sort of a answer, was it was creativity is how

you measure the unmeasurable.

And I think there is something again to do with that.

You know, we, we are in the world of the intangible and you know, I'm

on one hand, I understand the need for metrics and evidence, but I also

think you have to also understand that not everything can be measured,

but it shouldn't be automatically discounted because our measures haven't

become good enough to measure it.

You know, and that how do you measure that people have connected?

How do you measure that people stood up and said something that

they wouldn't normally have said?

How do you measure that people felt a bit braver?

And it's the same way you don't come out of the theater and immediately

say, well, I saw King Lear and that has made me reassess my role as a father.

You, that that is not how these things work.

So, so I think it's finding the balance, but between those two worlds, really.

Uh, yes.

Preach.

I could let you continue on that train all day.

I couldn't agree more, but you, you mentioned a little earlier about your own.

Kind of experience of bringing more playfulness into the medical profession

and the medical environments.

and that's been a bit of a journey, but it sounds of it, that you had moments

of real anxiety and nervousness around doing this, uh, which I absolutely

empathize with, but that you've grown in confidence the more you've done.

I'd love to hear more about yes, your own journey as a leader, in bringing play

into the workplace and how that's felt.

I think it felt, um, I started, as I say, doing it the 10 at 10 sessions.

Um, so that was 10 minutes.

Um, and you know, as I've always said, you know, this is the very first time I

did that and I came up with that idea.

I was working at the time as one of our practice development nurses,

uh, who, who, who had done the workshops, she knew the games.

Um, and I was, I said to her, will you do the games?

And she said, yes, I remember the night before, you know, I was quite restless

because I thought oh my goodness, I'm, you know, I'm going to do this tomorrow.

Am I mad?

I had this idea.

I made her go in and do it and I didn't do it myself and the department slightly

hyper anxious thinking something's going to happen and then I'm going

to have to explain that I've sent people around the back to play a game.

And I was very anxious and then it all happened and everybody come out and they

were laughing and then none of is fine.

So I started to do it, and then as I say, I did the, the day where we got,

you know, we did it as days and we got everybody, you know, a day age.

And that was, that was sort of a as part of the study days.

Um, then I, I did, I did it at a conference, so that, that was

very much the first time I went to somewhere new and did it with a

group of people I didn't really know before and I'd never met before.

Um, then I use that and I designed a, a kind of workshop for half day workshop

that I did for the organization.

And, and the again, I got different new people.

I was, I began to be asked to different organizations to do it.

So each time I got better.

I got more comfortable doing it.

I got better.

I suppose I began to believe in it a bit more.

So I think I was, you know, to begin with, I was always anxious that it would be,

it would be awful and it wouldn't work.

And then people would be, I don't know, just be awful.

And then I just began to trust myself a bit more each time I

did it, and I began to do that.

I also think the other way I had to grow with it was I had

to change it and adapt it.

So it was very much to begin with a lot of game playing.

Um, when the pandemic hit, obviously I remember that the very beginning

thinking, well, this is no, yeah.

I kind of can't do this in a pandemic kind of idea, this is, you know,

it's all very well talking about wellbeing, but now we're wellbeing in

the midst of this huge pandemic and I didn't really know how to proceed.

And then I thought, well, I do have to do something.

Um, at that time I decided I wouldn't do games for several reasons, but what

I me and mum being that they required people to be very close together.

And obviously you have to socially distance.

So there was a, there was an element that you couldn't do that.

Um, but, but what I was able to do was, uh, you know, I read that British

Psychological Society had had guidelines of how to support your team in a

pandemic, and one of them was create a space for people can, can feel open

about to express and how they feel.

So what I was able to do is I was able to run the wellbeing sessions where

people could be sort of spaced and then ask people to talk about how they felt.

And then what I did, I did it, you know, short period of time, but then I

got paid to do was draw how they felt.

So again, that, that continued that same kind of of playfulness really.

And actually find out that that drawing how you feel, it was very powerful people.

People, people, sometimes we were able to express much more

eloquently in their pictures than the were in words, how they felt.

And actually if you suddenly drew a picture and then everybody

looked at it, it seemed to be able to resonate in a way that, that

sometimes words didn't resonate.

And it was a very interesting way of doing it.

So, so I, I did that, um, that, that was really during the

first wave of the pandemic.

The second wave of the pandemic.

Which I'd probably say around December, December 2020,

January, 2021, in the emergency department, we were very busy then.

Um, and we, we couldn't even, we could be that things have changed again.

So we couldn't really have everybody to go on even have these 20 minutes to sit and

do that, that, that wasn't even possible.

But I still think I try to bring that sort of connection into the day.

And I S I started by, at the beginning of the shift, just this, the really

simple thing that became very powerful.

It just getting people to take on their mask for a moment, say their name and

what the role was in the department.

And there was something again about that slight connecting with each other that

became, became, I felt very important to people just, just that you start the day

off connecting and, um, you made it, you, you saved, you, you held a space for about

two minutes to get people to connect.

Um, and then idea as time's gone on, I've done that.

I've maintained doing that and I've never, I started a shift then

it's my, I do that with people.

Um, and sometimes.

I will throw out these kinds of icebreaker questions as well, to get people to

talk about if they'd one last meal on earth to eat, what would it be etc?

And I think these questions are quite interesting to us, but you know, it's that

slightly playful way to start the day.

But you know, you, you do get you getting people to talk about food

anyway is this really a no very emotive way to get people to bond.

Um, I think I read an interview with the new Grace Dent who does that podcast

Comfort Food and she gets celebrities to talk and she said if you get people

to talk about food, it takes them somewhere very quickly than actually

getting them to talk about other things.

You do bond.

So, so I've tried to introduce little things like that, um, you know,

during the time of moving forward.

And constantly trying to find ways of both expanding into bigger things.

So I now, you know, I created a device with a communications coerce,

so I bring a lot of it into that.

So there's something that would bring it into that arena and I'm changing

it slightly, but also finding little, teeny, tiny ways to just get it into

your daily day to day activities.

I think there's so much you shared.

Around this idea of starting with quite small steps.

So it's not that you woke up one morning and thought, right,

this is, this is my mission.

And I'm going to go gung ho.

It was much more about, you know, you do a course, you do a session.

You, you kind of, you're taking small steps, you're experimenting as you go.

So that's something kind of heartening to hear.

And I also had there about putting yourself out of your conference.

Was key is that tons of real anxiety, as you were saying, not sure of how

to be received, but to kind of put yourself out of your comfort zone.

And also getting feedback as to how it is learning for people.

And as you say, you're never going to please other people at the time.

But being led by people, asking for it and, and getting that feedback to kind

of take you further on the journey.

And also this idea of adapting to what is needed at the time.

And I love the idea of when you're faced with the challenges of the

pandemic, you couldn't just continue as it is, but you could adapt and

still bring in the principles.

And I love that you kind of create even a small amount of time and

space for this connection stuff.

That that's, what's really powerful from what you've said, is it, it can just

be a few minutes or a micro practice of taking a mass down and saying her name,

but the impact can be really out-sized.

But I think so many learnings from what you've just shared there.

You were in journey.

What do you think are the conditions for play to happen?

What needs to be in place for true play, to occur in an

organizational setting, do you think?

Again, you know, I remember before I started to do this, I remind even before

I have the idea to start to do this, I remember there was a vogue for a period

of time that we were being told in the NHS, we should be more like it was Google.

And Google are like, they are the organization I think everybody

thinks everybody, everybody references Google, and then the

NHS should be more like Google.

And then you'd immediately start talking about, you know, the way Google

looks, the big slide, do you know?

There's always that picture of the big slide as, as reference.

They've got the big slide and on the canteen where everybody wants to be.

So we'd all sit around and talk about Google and we had this well

it's all very well for Google, they've got the big slide, etc.

Um, and then you would just completely discount the idea.

Now I do believe environment is important.

So I'm not saying don't focus on your environment.

I think environment is very important and I think, again, someone like the

NHS that there's a lot being done at a time to improve the environment.

But probably what I would also say is, yes I think that's a good thing to

work on, but I don't think you should think that has to be in place before

you can start bringing in play, really.

Because I think if you sort of think, oh, well, we don't have the, we don't have

the big slide and all those things, um, and the brightly colored seats, then, then

there's absolutely no point until they get there, so we're just going to give

up on this idea, I think is important.

You know, I think probably after time, this is something I'm quite clear idea.

I think you need somebody to champion it, at least one person.

I think you need to, if you are championing it, decide you are going

to hold a time and a space to do it in.

And I think you need to say, we will hold a time and a space to do it in.

And I think there's something.

Actually standing up and saying, I am holding this time and this space

now, and I'm doing it in this point.

And if all you've got us two minutes, then all you've got is two minutes then, but

then stand up and hold that two minutes.

I think there's something as time's gone on, uh, I've certainly begun to understand

that something I didn't really understand before, but I've begun to understand more

and more the, the role of a facilitator.

I think that was something that I never, maybe if you rewind the clock

completely thought about or understood, but I think you need to hold a time

and space and I think you need a facilitator to then, to then run the

session because I think that's, it needs to be a facilitated session.

Really.

Um, and I think the facilitator themselves, they need to believe in

what they're doing, kind of idea.

So, so for example, you know, one of the things that I did along with the testing

done the masks in the morning is I asked the night team that are leaving to tell

me two positive things about the nature.

And as I say, I think that's a really good thing to do, because

I think it's important that people go home with a positive memory.

But you have to believe in on that question, because if you sort of say,

all right, well, they're all looking like it's been a dreadful night and you

go, okay, well just tell me two good things, you, it's not going to work.

You have to really sit there and have the confidence to say, okay, I know

this has been really dreadful for you.

And you're not going to want to do this, and you're going to start off by

resisting me, but let's all take a nice deep breath and just give me, and you

have to be a bit playful when you do it.

People will give you one thing and then you say, come on, dig deep,

one other thing and, and do it.

And I think it's the same with all these practices.

So if you everybody's there and they're stressed and you say, right, we're going

into turbine night and we're playing a game, you have to be prepared that in

the room and then the group, some people will be, yes I want to play The game.

Other people will be anxious.

Some people will be angry and you actually have to really just

go, we are going to do this.

And, and I believe that if we do this together, we will come out the

other end and our debt will be, um, you know, you will, you will feel

better if you like and doing this.

So I think probably what you need is you need to decide you're going to do it.

You need somebody to champion it.

You need to be very clear.

You're holding a time and space to do it, and you'll do it regularly.

You need to believe in it.

If you need to have to have that person to facilitate it, or have

a facilitator who believes in it.

And you have to accept that, you know, some days it will work better than others.

Some days it will not seem to work at all.

Other days it will really work stunningly well.

And then some days it will be somewhere in between, but a thing, you know, I think

that that's what you need to, you need to sort of have to get it into the workplace.

And just as we start to move towards the end of a lonely conversation, are you able

to share a playful practice that you use in your work or perhaps with others at

work that our listeners sitting at home, could think about trying in the workplace?

A small micro practice or behavior?

Certainly.

So, so what I would, first of all say is I'm a believer.

Now, if you did an F you, you need to, to open that.

So you did you, so, so quite often, if I'm doing anything, I will open it

by, by going rind, getting everybody to stand in a circle and, um, go ride

or sit in a circle if you're in a room and just say their name, a number

out of 10 and how they're feeling.

Um, they can expand opponent, but they can't, they can not, if you don't want to.

Sometimes you can add in, and you know, you can, you are

kind of variations in that.

And you can say if you were type of weather, whether would you be?

Sometimes you can use that to ask your, if you'd one last meal nurse

to eight foot book do, but I think it's very important to ask that sort

of question and get everybody to say their name and on how they're feeling.

And this is interesting because quite often what happens is.

And a lot of groups you will find, there is one surprisingly happy

person in that group, which which takes everybody, even myself.

Cause, cause to be honest, I normally I'm starting off a six and a seven, but there

will be, some are surprisingly person will say, well, I'm, I'm a nine or I'm a, and

everybody will look at them and think, oh my goodness, you know, what is it on?

If somebody is a four, they will say before, I never put the, and I think

even being, being able to say I'm a four, I've never put any looking at them,

sympathetically, it's quite a good level.

So I, so I think it's quite important that you go in and you

say, right, this is where we are.

And I think that sets the scene.

We're now in the world of feelings, that that's.

Then what I do, which is very interesting is I personally, and

I, I've a great believer in this.

I get people to shake.

So I get everybody to stand up and I get them to follow me, and I shake one hand

five times the other five times, one leg five times ever leg five times, and clap.

And I go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

And Yeah.

it was, it was, I saw somebody else do this.

It was, it was the nurse.

I used to work on Jo, when we did it, she found it from somewhere.

Uh, and there was something quite magical happened about that process when you

you've watched people go and do that.

And there was something about the clapping and the noise and, and

you really felt it took you from one place into another place.

And then I read after we'd been doing it, the checking

is a very healthy thing to do.

I think someone's written a book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, and it's

all to do with shaking is a kind of an animal practice to, when animals are

stressed or zebras are chased by a lion, the first thing they do is they shake

and that sort of recalibrate the kind of hypothalamus pituitary function.

So actually there's a scientific basis to it.

And then around the same time I read about, and there was some time to be

checking yoga, and then somebody said, oh yeah, my girlfriend did the shake in

yoga, but they got a lot of shaking them.

So, so I do that.

So I talk about that quite a lot.

Um, then I think one of the sort of next steps, practices to do is

if you want to it's the drawing one that I sometimes find is an easy one.

And again, what I do is I always start off by saying you can draw,

and you pick something simple.

We always pick a cat because it's a sort of simple shape.

And I was because I work at the Whittington.

It's a cop is, are like a logo kind of thing.

Cause if do your mascot.

So, um, I I'm asking for answers and you get people draw a

cat with your dominant hand.

And then do it with your non-dominant hand and they're draw it with your eyes closed.

And that's quite an interesting one to take people through.

Because lots of people are scared of drilling and under scared of being

drawing, there's got to be judged, they're scared of not being able to do something,

they're scared of looking silly.

So they're always a bit nervous.

And actually when you draw with your non-dominant hand, it does

seem to free you from that a bit.

And although your drones are all a bit more crooked or they seem

to level everybody's drawings out.

And also pimple, you just seem to be more alive and more quirky.

So then as soon as people do that, they relax into it.

And then you can say, um, drove with your eyes closed.

And then that leads to this whole, we'll just say, or zip on the surreal

Cassa will look and they call them cots.

And so I'll strange and unlike that.

So I think that, you know, and anybody can do that.

You just need a pan on a page.

And then if you do that, I have sometimes taken it on from, you know, draw me

what, you know, how you're feeling today?

Or draw me and you can do it with your right hand, your left.

You can decide you need to play around with that.

You know, draw them.

If you, if there's something you want at this moment.

Um, you know, one year I did.

No, I did it once I was asked to do a workshop and it was, it

wasn't this Christmas, but it was the button before and it was draw

me what you want for Christmas.

And then there was, there was, there was quite a lovely paper talking about them.

It's just lovely range of drawings from somebody just wanted COVID to go

away and somebody's drawing, and then somebody else wanted um, a glug jug.

And everyone's going what's that?

It's one of those jugs that glug, you know.

There's something quite sweet about this idea that again, all these little

things that people share, they become very connecting and bonding, and they're

just a kind of a starting point and everybody laughs and everybody relaxes.

So I think that's a very simple way.

And you could do that at the beginning of that, you could do that at the

beginning of just any meeting.

It'll take about five to 10 minutes and then you can move in to discussing what

you need to move into in the meeting.

But it's just, it's just moved you into a slightly different way of doing it.

Really?

Absolutely.

The word users now, which I love to move you from one place into another.

It's exactly what play does.

Um, and this beautiful wording.

I want to continue, but I'm going to respect your time and

stop the conversation there.

It's been such a pleasure, such an enlivening and heartening and

warming conversation with you, Heidi.

Thank you so much for your time today.

No problem.

It's been lovely speaking to you too.

I really liked this idea of fun and playfulness as ways of accessing qualities

that are important to what you do.

And she was talking about how as a doctor, you know, it's that.

It's the humanity and it's the, the ability to connect with patients

with each other that is so important.

And also just, just the bravery of doing something like this in a setting

where it's not the obvious thing.

Yeah.

I love how she saw and felt acknowledged that creativity was

important to her as a, as a person.

Um, she talks about her creative writing as a, as a sort of practice,

and how she really thought, how can creativity, this important thing to me,

inform my work, and enrich my practice, in my kind of professional world?

So I love the, the bridge that she built for herself.

I loved when she was describing playing games at the start of

a shift to help people connect.

You know, that's so simple and the, this 10, I think it wasn't every day.

It was like once a week sometimes, but just bringing it into, she

described it as the fabric and the pattern of work and the impact of

that, I just thought was amazing.

And, you know, the, the effect of just simply removing your mask and showing

each other, your faces, how powerful, just tiny things like that can be

in connecting us as human beings.

It was definitely that theme of small steps and small interventions

that I found really inspiring in this conversation, how she talks

about following her own curiosities.

You know, she takes us right back to 2013 when she began, you know,

taking these kind of theater workshops and kind of evening classes

that were just her own curiosity.

There was no kind of strategy behind it.

And she was just learning new methods, taking small steps, trying something

new and small one bit at a time.

And I just love that idea of she had her expectations.

She was learning by doing, she would learn a bit of something new, some new, um,

practices, and then she would share them with others and then gauge the impact and

then let that guide her to the next step.

And she talked about how by doing this kind of step by step, following her

curiosity, she learned to really trust herself, but it was a real, it's been

a real journey, you know, over the past sort of six plus years of just trying

something new and small one bit at a time.

Yeah.

And that, that journey to trusting herself and the importance of having that

confidence when you are holding this work.

So believing in yourself and believing in the benefits of it in

order to be able to bring people on a similar journey with you.

but also being really open about, she talks about the imposter syndrome that

she was feeling at times, you know, the inner voice saying, you know,

you're a doctor, why are you here?

You're not meant to be playful.

And it just made me laugh, that inner voice really resonating with

me and kind of, that judgment of, are you the right person to be, you

know, inviting and encouraging others to open up to more playfulness?

Um, I just loved her acknowledgement of, of those kind of those moments

of doubt and anxiety that she faced, when sharing this work with others.

I also found it really interesting what she was saying.

The example she gave of the nurse who came and was like, I think this is all

rubbish and really didn't enjoy the com enjoy the experience, but actually that

not being that doesn't matter because you know, the conversation that ensued

afterwards, it was, there was an openness, there was a trust that had clearly

developed and how actually this can't all be measured, but, you know, she said it

shouldn't automatically be discounted.

And I think that's so true.

There's value within this, like deep value that we can't always quantify and

I think that's really important to hold.

Thank you so much for listening today.

If you enjoyed this episode, please do rate and review as it really

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